The Society of Friends in that day bore in mind the advice of their great founder, Fox, whose last words were: "Friends, mind the light." And following that guide which leads out of all evil and into all good, they viewed every custom of society with eyes undimmed by prejudice, and were influenced in every action of life by a belief in the common brotherhood of man, and a resolve to obey the command of Jesus, to love one another. This being the case, slavery and oppression of all kinds were unpopular, and indeed almost unknown amongst them.

James Gibbons was a republican, and an enthusiastic advocate of American liberty. Being a man of commanding presence, and great energy and determination, efforts were made during the Revolution to induce him to enlist as a cavalry soldier. He was prevented from so doing by the entreaties of his wife, and his own conscientious scruples as a Friend. About the time of the Revolution, or immediately after, he removed to the borough of Wilmington, Delaware, where, being surrounded by slavery, he became more than ever alive to its iniquities. He was interested during his whole life in getting slaves off. And being elected second burgess of Wilmington during his residence there, his official position gave him great opportunities to assist in this noble work. It is related that during his magistracy a slave-holder brought a colored man before him, whom he claimed as his slave. There being no evidence of the alleged ownership, the colored man was set at liberty. The pretended owner was inclined to be impudent; but James Gibbons told him promptly that nothing but silence and good behaviour on his part would prevent his commitment for contempt of court.

About the year 1790, James Gibbons came back to Lancaster county, where he spent twenty years in the practice of those deeds which will remain "in everlasting remembrance;" dying, full of years and honors, in 1810.

Born in the first year of the revolution and growing up surrounded by such influences, Daniel Gibbons could not have been other than he was, the friend of the down-trodden and oppressed of every nationality and color. In 1789 his father took him to see General Washington, then passing through Wilmington. To the end of his life he retained a vivid recollection of this visit, and would recount its incidents to his family and friends. During his father's residence in Wilmington, he spent his summers with kinsmen in Lancaster county, learning to be a farmer, and his winters in Wilmington going to school.

At the age of fourteen years he was bound an apprentice, as was the good custom of the day, to a Friend in Lancaster county to learn the tanning business. At this he served about six years, or until his master ceased to follow the business. During this apprenticeship he became accustomed to severe labor, so severe indeed that he never recovered from the effects thereof, having a difficulty in walking during the remainder of his life, which prevented him from taking the active part in Underground Rail Road business which he otherwise would have done. His father's estate being involved in litigation caused him to be put to this trade, farming being his favorite employment, and one which he followed during his whole life.

In 1805 he took a pedestrian tour, by way of New York, Albany, and Niagara Falls to the State of Ohio, then the far West, coming home by way of Pittsburg, and walking altogether one thousand three hundred and fifty miles. In this trip he increased the injury to his feet, so as to render himself virtually a cripple. Upon the death of his father, he settled upon the farm, on which he died.

About the year 1808 on going to visit some friends, who had removed to Adams county, Pennsylvania, he became acquainted with Hannah Wierman, whom he married on the fourth day of the fifth month, 1815. At this time Daniel Gibbous was about forty years old, and his wife about twenty-eight, she having been born on the ninth of the seventh month, 1787. A life of one after their union, would be incomplete without some notice of the other.

During a married life of thirty-seven years, Hannah Gibbons was the assistant of her husband in every good and noble work. Possessed of a warm heart, a powerful, though uncultivated intellect, an excellent judgment, and great sweetness of disposition, she was fitted both by nature and training to endure without murmuring the inconvenience and trouble incident to the reception and care of fugitives and to rejoice that to her was given the opportunity of assisting them in their efforts to be free.

The true measure of greatness in a human soul, is its willingness to suffer for its own good, or the good of its fellows, its self-sacrificing spirit. Granting the truth of this, one of the greatest souls was that of Hannah W. Gibbons. The following incident is a proof of this:

In 1836, when she was no longer a young woman, there came to her home, one of the poorest, most ignorant, and filthiest of mankind—a slave from the great valley of Virginia. He was foot-sore and weary, and could not tell how he came, or who directed him. He seemed indeed, a missive directed and sent by the hand of the Almighty. Before he could be cleansed or recruited, he was taken sick, and before he could be removed (even if he could have been trusted at the county poor house), his case was pronounced to be small-pox. For six long weeks did this good angel in human form, attend upon this unfortunate object. Reasons were found why no one else could do it, and with her own hands, she ministered to his wants, until he was restored to health. Such was her life. This is merely one case. She was always ready to do her duty. Her interest in good, never left her, for when almost dying, she aroused from her lethargy and asked if Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, which he was a few days afterwards. She always predicted a civil war, in the settlement of the Slavery question.

During the last twenty-five years of her life she was an elder in the Society of Friends, of which she had always been an earnest, consistent, and devoted member. Her patience, self-denial, and warm affection were manifested in every relation of life. As a daughter, wife, mother, friend, and mistress of a family she was beloved by all, and to her relatives and friends who are left behind, the remembrance of her good deeds comes wafted like a perfume from beyond the golden gates. She survived her husband about eight years, dying on the sixteenth of the tenth month, 1860. Three children, sons, were born to their marriage, two of whom died in infancy and one still (1871) survives.

To give some idea of the course pursued by Daniel and Hannah Gibbons, I insert the following letter, containing an account of events which took place in 1821:

"A short time since, I learned that my old friend, William Still, was about to publish a history of the Underground Rail Road. His own experience in the service of this road would make a large volume. I was brought up by Daniel Gibbons, and am asked to say what I know of him as an abolitionist. From my earliest recollection, he was a friend to the colored people, and often hired them and paid them liberal wages. His house was a depot for fugitives, and many hundreds has he helped on their way to freedom. Many a dark night he has sent me to carry them victuals and change their places of refuge, and take them to other people's barns, when not safe for him to go. I have known him start in the night and go fifty miles with them, when they were very hotly pursued. One man and his wife lived with him for a long time. Afterwards the man lived with Thornton Walton. The man was hauling lumber from Columbia. He was taken from his team in Lancaster, and lodged in Baltimore jail. Daniel Gibbons went to Baltimore, visited the jail and tried hard to get him released, but failed. I would add here, that Daniel Gibbons' faithful wife, one of the best women I ever knew, was always ready, day or night, to do all she possibly could, to help the poor fugitives on their way to freedom. Many interesting incidents occurred at the home of my uncle. I will relate one. He had living with him at one time, two colored men, Thomas Colbert and John Stewart. The latter was from Maryland; John often said he would go back and get his wife. My uncle asked him if he was not afraid of his master's catching him. He said no, for his master knew if he undertook to take him, he would kill him. He did go and brought his wife to my uncle's.

While these two large men, Tom and John, were there, along came Robert (other name unknown), in a bad plight, his feet bleeding. Robert was put in the barn to thrash, until he could be fixed up to go again on his journey. But in a few days, behold, along came his master. He brought with him that notorious constable, Haines, from Lancaster, and one other man. They came suddenly upon Robert; as soon as he saw them he ran and jumped out of the "overshoot," some ten feet down. In jumping, he put one knee out of joint. The men ran around the barn and seized him. By this time, the two colored men, Tom and John, came, together with my uncle and aunt. Poor Robert owned his master, but John told them they should not take him away, and was going at them with a club. One of the men drew a pistol to shoot John, but uncle told him he had better not shoot him; this was not a slave State. Inasmuch as Robert had owned his master, Uncle told John he must submit, so they put Robert on a horse, and started with him. After they were gone John said: "Mr. Gibbons, just say the word, and I will bring Robert back." Aunt said: "Go, John, go!" So John ran to Joseph Rakestraw's and got a gun (without any lock), and ran across the fields, with Tom after him, and headed the party. The men all ran except Haines, who kept Robert between himself and John, so that John should not shoot him. But John called out to Robert to drop off that horse, or he would shoot him. This Robert did, and John and Tom brought him back in triumph. My aunt said: "John, thee is a good fellow, thee has done well." Robert was taken to Jesse Gilbert's barn, and Dr. Dingee fixed his knee. As soon as he was able to travel, he took a "bee-line" for the North star.

My life with my uncle and aunt made me an abolitionist. I left them in the winter of 1824, and came to Salem, Ohio, where I kept a small station on the Underground Rail Road, until the United States government took my work away. I have helped over two hundred fugitives on their way to Canada.

Respectfully,

DANIEL BONSALL,

Salem, Columbiana county, Ohio."

One day, in the winter of 1822, Thomas Johnson, a colored man, living with Daniel Gibbons, went out early in the morning, to set traps for muskrats. While he was gone, a slave-holder came to the house and inquired for his slave. Daniel Gibbons said: "There is no slave here of that name." The man replied: "I know he is here. The man we're after, is a miserable, worthless, thieving scoundrel." "Oh! very well, then," said the good Quaker, "if that's the kind of man thee's after, then I know he is not here. We have a colored man here, but he is not that kind of a man." The slaveholder waited awhile, the man not making his appearance, then said: "Well, now, Mr. Gibbons, when you see that man next, tell him that we were here, and if he will come home, we will take good care of him, and be kind to him." "Very well," said Daniel, "I will tell him what thee says, but say to him at the same time, that he is a very great fool, if he does as thee requests." The colored man sought, having caught sight of the slaveholders, and knowing who they were, went off that night, under Daniel Gibbons' directions, and was never seen by his master again. Afterward, Daniel and his nephew, William Gibbons, went with this man to Adams county. With his master came the master of Mary, a girl with straight hair, and nearly white, who lived with Daniel Gibbons and his wife. Poor Mary was unfortunate. Her master caught her, and took her back with him into Slavery. She and a little girl, who was taken away about the year 1830, were the only ones ever taken back from the house of Daniel Gibbons.

Between the time of his marriage, when he began to keep a depot on the Underground Rail Road, and the year 1824, he passed more than one hundred slaves through to Canada, and between the latter time and his death, eight hundred more, making, in all nine hundred aided by him. He was ever willing to sacrifice his own personal comfort and convenience, in order to assist fugitives. In 1833, when on his way to the West, in a carriage, with his friend, Thomas Peart, also a most faithful friend of the colored man and interested in Underground Rail Road affairs, he found a fugitive slave, a woman, in Adams county, who was in immediate danger. He stopped his journey, and sent his horse and wagon back to his own home with the woman, that being the only safe way of getting her off. This was but a sample of his self-denial, in the cause of human freedom.

His want of ability to guide in person runaway slaves, or to travel with them, prevented him from taking active part in the wonderful adventures and hair-breadth escapes which his brain and tact rendered possible and successful. It is believed that no slave was ever recaptured that followed his directions. Sometimes the abolitionists were much annoyed by impostors, who pretended to be runaways, in order to discover their plans, and betray them to the slave-holders. Daniel Gibbons was possessed of much acuteness in detecting these people, but having detected them, he never treated them harshly or unkindly.

Almost from infancy, he was distinguished for the gravity of his deportment, and his utter heedlessness of small things. The writer has heard men preach the doctrine of the trifling value of the things of a present time, and of the tremendous importance of those of a never-ending eternity, but Daniel Gibbons is the only person she ever knew, who lived that doctrine. He believed in plainness of apparel as taught by Friends, not as a form or a rule of society, but as a principle; often quoting from some one who said that "the adornment of a vain and foolish world, would feed a starving one." He opposed extravagant fashions and all luxury of habit and life, as calculated to produce effeminacy and degrading sensuality, and as a bestowal of idolatrous attention upon that body which he would often say "was here but for a short time."

Looking only upon that as religion, which made men love each other and do good to each other in this world, he was little of a stickler for points of belief, and even when he did look into theological matters or denounce a man's religious opinions, it was generally because they were calculated to darken the mind and be entertained as a substitute for good works. Pursuing the even tenor of his way, he could as easily lead the flying fugitive slave by night out of the way of his powerful master, as one differently constituted could bestow his wealth upon the most popular charity in the land.

His faith was of the simplest kind—the Parable of the prodigal son, contains his creed. Discarding what are commonly called "plans of salvation," he believed in the light "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," and that if people would follow this light, they would thus seek "the kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness and all other things needful would be added thereunto." He was a devoted member of the Society of Friends, in which he held the position of elder, during the last twenty-five years of his life. That peculiar doctrine of the Society, which repudiates systematic divinity and with it a paid ministry, he held in special reverence, finding confirmation of its truth in the general advocacy of Slavery, by the popular clergy of his day.

When he was quite advanced in years, and the Anti-slavery agitation grew warm, he was solicited to join an anti-slavery society, but on hearing the constitution read, and finding that it repudiated all use of physical force on the part of the oppressed in gaining their liberty, he said that he could not assent to that—that he had long been engaged in getting off slaves, and that he had always advised them to use force, although remonstrating against going to the extent of taking life, and that now he could not recede from that position, and he did not see how they could always be got off without the use of some force.

His faith in an overruling Providence was complete. He believed, even in the darkest days of freedom in our land, in the ultimate extinction of Slavery, and at times, although advanced in years, thought he would live to witness that glorious consummation. It is only in a man's own family and by his wife and children, that he is really known, and it is by those who best knew, and indeed, who only knew this good man, that his biographer is most anxious that he should be judged. As a parent, he was not excessively indulgent, as a husband, one more nearly a model is rarely found. But his kindness in domestic life, his love for his wife, his son and his grandchildren, and their reciprocal love and affection for him, no words can express.

It was in his father's household in his youth and in his own household in his mature years, that was fostered that wealth of love and affection, which, extending and widening, took in the whole race, and made him the friend of the oppressed everywhere, and especially of those whom it was a dangerous and unpopular task to befriend.

The tenderness and thoughtfulness of his disposition are well shown in the following incident: Upon one occasion, his son received a kick from a horse, which he was about to mount at the door. When he had recovered from the shock, and it was found that he was not seriously injured, the father still continued to look serious, and did not cease to shed tears. On being asked why he grieved, his answer was: "I was just thinking how it would have been with thee, had that stroke proved fatal." Such thoughts were at once the notes of his own preparation and a warning to others to be also ready.

A life consistent with his views, was a life of humility and universal benevolence, and such was his. It was a life, as it were in Heaven, while yet on earth, for it soared above and beyond the corrupt and slavish influences of earthly passions.

His interest in temperance never failed him. On his death-bed he would call persons to him, who needed such advice, and admonish them on the subject of using strong drinks, and his last expression of interest in any humanitarian movement, was an avowal of his belief in the great good to arise from a prohibitory liquor law.

To a friend, who entered his sick room, a few days before his death, he said: "Well, E., thee is preparing to go to the West." The friend replied: "Yes, and Daniel, I suppose thee is preparing to go to eternity." There was an affirmative reply, and E. inquired, "How does thee find it?" Daniel said: "I don't find much to do, I find that I have not got a hard master to deal with. Some few things which I have done, I find not entirely right." He quitted the earthly service of the Master, on the 17th day of the eighth month, 1852.

A young physician, son of one of his old friends, after attending his funeral, wrote to a friend, as follows: "To quote the words of Webster, 'We turned and paused, and joined our voices with the voices of the air, and bade him hail! and farewell!' Farewell, kind and brave old man! The voices of the oppressed whom thou hast redeemed, welcome thee to the Eternal City."



LUCRETIA MOTT.

Of all the women who served the Anti-slavery cause in its darkest days, there is not one whose labors were more effective, whose character is nobler, and who is more universally respected and beloved, than Lucretia Mott. You cannot speak of the slave without remembering her, who did so much to make Slavery impossible. You cannot speak of freedom, without recalling that enfranchised spirit, which, free from all control, save that of conscience and God, labored for absolute liberty for the whole human race. We cannot think of the partial triumph of freedom in this country, without rejoicing in the great part she took in the victory. Lucretia Mott is one of the noblest representatives of ideal womanhood. Those who know her, need not be told this, but those who only love her in the spirit, may be sure that they can have no faith too great in the beauty of her pure and Christian life.

This book would be incomplete without giving some account, however brief, of Lucretia Mott's character and labors in the great work to which her life has been devoted. To write it fully would require a volume. She was born in 1793, in the island of Nantucket, and is descended from the Coffins and Macys, on the father's side, and from the Folgers, on the mother's side, and through them is related to Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Her maiden name was Lucretia Coffin.

During the absence of her father on a long voyage, her mother was engaged in mercantile business, purchasing goods in Boston, in exchange for oil and candles, the staples of the island. Mrs. Mott says in reference to this employment: "The exercise of women's talent in this line, as well as the general care which devolved upon them in the absence of their husbands, tended to develop their intellectual powers, and strengthened them mentally and physically."

The family removed to Boston in 1804. Her parents belonged to the religious Society of Friends, and carefully cultivated in their children, the peculiarities as well as the principles of that sect. To this early training, we may ascribe the rigid adherence of Mrs. Mott, to the beautiful but sober costume of the Society.

When in London, in 1840, she visited the Zoological Gardens, and a gentleman of the party, pointing out the splendid plumage of some tropical birds, remarked: "You see, Mrs. Mott, our heavenly Father believes in bright colors. How much it would take from our pleasure, if all the birds were dressed in drab." "Yes;" she replied, "but immortal beings do not depend upon feathers for their attractions. With the infinite variety of the human face and form, of thought, feeling and affection, we do not need gorgeous apparel to distinguish us. Moreover, if it is fitting that woman should dress in every color of the rainbow, why not man also? Clergymen, with their black clothes and white cravats, are quite as monotonous as the Quakers." Whatever may be the abstract merit of this argument, it is certain that the simplicity of Lucretia Mott's nature, is beautifully expressed by her habitual costume.

In giving the principal events of Lucretia Mott's life, we prefer to use her own language whenever possible. In memoranda furnished by her to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she says: "My father had a desire to make his daughters useful. At fourteen years of age, I was placed, with a younger sister, at the Friends' Boarding School, in Dutchess county, State of New York, and continued there for more than two years, without returning home. At fifteen, one of the teachers leaving the school, I was chosen as an assistant in her place. Pleased with the promotion, I strove hard to give satisfaction, and was gratified, on leaving the school, to have an offer of a situation as teacher if I was disposed to remain; and informed that my services should entitle another sister to her education, without charge. My father was at that time, in successful business in Boston, but with his views of the importance of training a woman to usefulness, he and my mother gave their consent to another year being devoted to that institution." Here is another instance of the immeasurable value of wise parental influence.

In 1809 Lucretia joined her family in Philadelphia, whither they had removed. "At the early age of eighteen," she says, "I married James Mott, of New York—an attachment formed while at the boarding-school." Mr. Mott entered into business with her father. Then followed commercial depressions, the war of 1812, the death of her father, and the family became involved in difficulties. Mrs. Mott was again obliged to resume teaching. "These trials," she says, "in early life, were not without their good effect in disciplining the mind, and leading it to set a just estimate on worldly pleasures."

To this early training, to the example of a noble father and excellent mother, to the trials which came so quickly in her life, the rapid development of Mrs. Mott's intellect is no doubt greatly due. Thus the foundation was laid, which has enabled her, for more than fifty years, to be one of the great workers in the cause of suffering humanity. These are golden words which we quote from her own modest notes: "I, however, always loved the good, in childhood desired to do the right, and had no faith in the generally received idea of human depravity." Yes, it was because she believed in human virtue, that she was enabled to accomplish such a wonderful work. She had the inspiration of faith, and entered her life-battle against Slavery with a divine hope, and not with a gloomy despair.

The next great step in Lucretia Mott's career, was taken at the age of twenty-five, when, "summoned by a little family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life of devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in our Society."

In 1827 when the Society was divided Mrs. Mott's convictions led her "to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on the truth as authority, rather than 'taking authority for truth.'" We may find no better place than this to refer to her relations to Christianity. There are many people who do not believe in the progress of religion. They are right in one respect. God's truth cannot be progressive because it is absolute, immutable and eternal. But the human race is struggling up to a higher comprehension of its own destiny and of the mysterious purposes of God so far as they are revealed to our finite intelligence. It is in this sense that religion is progressive. The Christianity of this age ought to be more intelligent than the Christianity of Calvin. "The popular doctrine of human depravity," says Mrs. Mott, "never commended itself to my reason or conscience. I searched the Scriptures daily, finding a construction of the text wholly different from that which was pressed upon our acceptance. The highest evidence of a sound faith being the practical life of the Christian, I have felt a far greater interest in the moral movements of our age than in any theological discussion." Her life is a noble evidence of the sincerity of this belief. She has translated Christian principles into daily deeds.

That spirit of benevolence which Mrs. Mott possesses in a degree far above the average, of necessity had countless modes of expression. She was not so much a champion of any particular cause as of all reforms. It was said of Charles Lamb that he could not even hear the devil abused without trying to say something in his favor, and with all Mrs. Mott's intense hatred of Slavery we do not think she ever had one unkind feeling toward the slave-holder. Her longest, and probably her noblest work, was done in the anti-slavery cause. "The millions of down-trodden slaves in our land," she says, "being the greatest sufferers, the most oppressed class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in season and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their soul's stead, and to aid, all in my power, in every right effort for their immediate emancipation." When in 1833, Wm. Lloyd Garrison took the ground of immediate emancipation and urged the duty of unconditional liberty without expatriation, Mrs. Mott took an active part in the movement. She was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. "Being actively associated in the efforts for the slave's redemption," she says, "I have traveled thousands of miles in this country, holding meetings in some of the slave states, have been in the midst of mobs and violence, and have shared abundantly in the odium attached to the name of an uncompromising modern abolitionist, as well as partaken richly of the sweet return of peace attendant on those who would 'undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke.'" In 1840 she attended the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Because she was a woman she was not admitted as a delegate. All the female delegates, however, were treated with courtesy, though not with justice. Mrs. Mott spoke frequently in the liberal churches of England, and her influence outside of the Convention had great effect on the Anti-Slavery movement in Great Britain.

But the value of Mrs. Mott's anti-slavery work is not limited to what she individually did, great as that labor was. Her influence over others, and especially the young, was extraordinary. She made many converts, who went forth to spread the great ideas of freedom throughout the land. No one can of himself accomplish great good. He must labor through others, he must inspire them, convince the unbelieving, kindle the fires of faith in doubting souls, and in the unequal fight of Right with Wrong make Hope take the place of despair. This Lucretia Mott has done. Her example was an inspiration.

In the Temperance reform Mrs. Mott took an early interest, and for many years she has practiced total abstinence from intoxicating drinks. In the cause of Peace she has been ever active, believing in the "ultra non-resistance ground, that no Christian can consistently uphold and actively engage in and support a government based on the sword." Yet this, we believe, did not prevent her from taking a profound interest in the great war for the Union; though she deplored the means, her soul must have exulted in the result. Through anguish and tears, blood and death America wrought out her salvation. Do we not believe that the United States leads the cause of human freedom? It follows then that the abolition of the gigantic system of human slavery in this country is the grandest event in modern history. Mrs. Mott has also been earnestly engaged in aid of the working classes, and has labored effectively for "a radical change in the system which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer." In the Woman's Rights question she was early interested, and with Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she organized, in 1848, a Woman's Rights' Convention at Seneca Falls, New York. At the proceedings of this meeting, "the nation was convulsed with laughter." But who laughs now at this irresistible reform?

The public career of Lucretia Mott is in perfect harmony with her private life. "My life in the domestic sphere," she says, "has passed much as that of other wives and mothers of this country. I have had six children. Not accustomed to resigning them to the care of a nurse, I was much confined to them during their infancy and childhood." Notwithstanding her devotion to public matters her private duties were never neglected. Many of our readers will no doubt remember Mrs. Mott at Anti-slavery meetings, her mind intently fixed upon the proceedings, while her hands were as busily engaged in useful sewing or knitting. It is not our place to inquire too closely into this social circle, but we may say that Mrs. Mott's history is a living proof that the highest public duties may be reconciled with perfect fidelity to private responsibilities. It is so with men, why should it be different with women?

In her marriage, Mrs. Mott was fortunate. James Mott was a worthy partner for such a woman. He was born in June, 1788, in Long Island. He was an anti-slavery man, almost before such a thing as anti-slavery was known. In 1812 he refused to use any article which was produced by slave labor. The directors of that greatest of all railway corporations, the Underground Rail Road, will never forget his services. He died, January 26, 1868, having nearly completed his 80th year. "Not only in regard to Slavery," said the "Philadelphia Morning Post," at the time, "but in all things was Mr. Mott a reformer, and a radical, and while his principles were absolute, and his opinions uncompromising, his nature was singularly generous and humane. Charity was not to him a duty, but a delight; and the benevolence, which, in most good men, has some touch of vanity or selfishness, always seemed in him pure, unconscious and disinterested. His life was long and happy, and useful to his fellow-men. He had been married for fifty-seven years, and none of the many friends of James and Lucretia Mott, need be told how much that union meant, nor what sorrow comes with its end in this world." Mary Grew pronounced his fitting epitaph when she said: "He was ever calm, steadfast, and strong in the fore front of the conflict."

In her seventy-ninth year, the energy of Lucretia Mott is undiminished, and her soul is as ardent in the cause to which her life has been devoted, as when in her youth she placed the will of a true woman against the impotence of prejudiced millions. With the abolition of Slavery, and the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, her greatest life-work ended. Since then, she has given much of her time to the Female Suffrage movement, and so late as November, 1871, she took an active part in the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Peace Society.

Since the great law was enacted, which made all men, black or white, equal in political rights—as they were always equal in the sight of God—Mrs. Mott has made it her business to visit every colored church in Philadelphia. This we may regard as the formal closing of fifty years of work in behalf of a race which she has seen raised from a position of abject servitude, to one higher than that of a monarch's throne. But though she may have ended this Anti-slavery work, which is but the foundation of the destiny of the colored race in America, her influence is not ended—that cannot die; it must live and grow and deepen, and generations hence the world will be happier and better that Lucretia Mott lived and labored for the good of all mankind.



JAMES MILLER McKIM.

More vividly than it is possible for the pen to portray, the subject of this sketch recalls the struggles of the worst years of Slavery, when the conflict was most exciting and interesting, when more minds were aroused, and more laborers were hard at work in the field; when more anti-slavery speeches were made, tracts, papers, and books, were written, printed and distributed; when more petitions were signed for the abolition of Slavery; in a word, when the barbarism of Slavery was more exposed and condemned than ever before, in the same length of time. Abolitionists were then intensely in earnest, and determined never to hold their peace or cease their warfare, until immediate and unconditional emancipation was achieved.

On the other hand, during this same period, it is not venturing too much to assert that the slave power was more oppressive than ever before; slave enactments more cruel; the spirit of Slavery more intolerant; the fetters more tightly drawn; perilous escapes more frequent; slave captures and slave hunts more appalling; in short, the enslavers of the race had never before so defiantly assumed that negro Slavery was sanctioned by the Divine laws of God.

Thus, while these opposing agencies were hotly contesting the rights of man, James Miller McKim, as one of the earliest, most faithful, and ablest abolitionists in Pennsylvania, occupied a position of influence, labor and usefulness, scarcely second to Mr. Garrison.

For at least fourteen of the eventful years referred to, it was the writer's privilege to occupy a position in the Anti-slavery office with Mr. McKim, and the best opportunity was thus afforded to observe him under all circumstances while battling for freedom. As a helper and friend of the fleeing bondman, in numberless instances the writer has marked well his kind and benevolent spirit, before and after the formation of the late Vigilance Committee. At all times when the funds were inadequate, his aid could be counted upon for sure relief. He never failed the fugitive in the hour of need. Whether on the Underground Rail Road bound for Canada, or before a United States commissioner trying a fugitive case, the slave found no truer friend than Mr. McKim.

If the records of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society were examined and written out by a pen, as competent as Mr. McKim's, two or three volumes of a most thrilling, interesting, and valuable character could be furnished to posterity. But as his labors have been portrayed for these pages, by a hand much more competent than the writer's, it only remains to present it as follows:

The subject of this sketch was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, November 14, 1810, the oldest but one of eight children. On his father's side, he was of Scotch Irish, on his mother's (Miller) of German descent. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1828; and entering upon the study of medicine, attended one or more courses of lectures in the University of Pennsylvania. Before he was ready to take his degree, his mind was powerfully turned towards religion, and he relinquished medicine for the study of divinity, entering the Theological Seminary at Princeton, in the fall of 1831, and a year later, being matriculated at Andover. The death of his parents, however, and subsequently that of his oldest brother, made his connection with both these institutions a very brief one, and he was obliged, as the charge of the family now devolved upon him, to continue his studies privately at home, under the friendly direction of the late Dr. Duffield. An ardent and pronounced disciple of the "New School" of Presbyterians, belonging to a strongly Old School Presbytery; he was able to secure license and ordination only by transfer to another; and, in October, 1835, he accepted a pulpit in Womelsdorf, Berks County, Pa., where he preached for one year, to a Presbyterian congregation, to what purpose, and with what views, may be learned from the following passage taken from one of his letters, written more than twenty years afterwards, to the National Anti-Slavery Standard. "The first settled pastor of this little flock was one sufficiently well-known to such of your readers as will be interested in this, to make mention of his name unnecessary. He had studied for the ministry with a strong desire, and a half formed purpose to become a missionary in foreign lands. Before he had proceeded far in his studies, however, he became alive to the claims of the 'perishing heathen' here at home. When he received his licensure, his mind was divided between the still felt impulse of his first purpose and the pressure of his later convictions. While yet unsettled on this point, the case of the little church at Womelsdorf was made known to him, followed by an urgent request from the people and from the Home Missionary Society to take charge of it. He acceded to the request and remained there one year, zealously performing the duties of his office to the best of his knowledge and ability. The people, earnest and simple-hearted, desired the 'sincere milk of the Word,' and receiving it 'grew thereby.' All the members of the church became avowed abolitionists. They showed their faith by their works, contributing liberally to the funds of the Anti-slavery Society. Many a seasonable donation has our Pennsylvania organization received from that quarter. For though their anti-slavery minister had left and had been followed by others of different sentiments and though he had withdrawn from the church with which they were in common connected, and that on grounds which subjected him to the imputation and penalties af heresy, these good people did not feel called upon to change their relations of personal friendship, nor did they make it a pretext, as others have done, for abandoning the cause."

In October, 1836, he accepted a lecturing agency under the American Anti-slavery Society, as one of the "seventy," gathered from all professions, whom Theodore D. Weld had by his eloquence inspired to spread the gospel of emancipation. Mr. McKim had long before this had his attention drawn to the subject of slavery, in the summer of 1832; and the reading of Garrison's "Thoughts on Colonization," at once made him an abolitionist. He was an appointed delegate to the Convention which formed the American Anti-slavery Society, and enjoyed the distinction of being the youngest member of that body.[A] Henceforth the object of the society, and of his ministry became inseparable in his mind.

[Footnote A: It may be a matter of some interest to state that the original draft of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted at this meeting, together with the autographs of the signers, is now in the keeping of the New York Historical Society.]

In the following summer, 1834, he delivered in Carlisle two addresses in favor of immediate emancipation, which excited much discussion and bitter feeling in that border community, and gained him no little obloquy, which was of course increased when, as a lecturer, on the regular stipend of eight dollars a week and travelling expenses, ("pocket lined with British gold" was the current charge), he traversed his native state, among a people in the closest geographical, commercial, and social contact with the system of slavery. His fate was not different from that of his colleagues, in respect of interruptions of his meetings by mob violence, personal assaults with stale eggs and other more dangerous missiles, and a public sentiment which everywhere encouraged and protected the rioters.

Meantime, a radical change of opinion on theological questions, led Mr. McKim formally to sever his connection with the Presbyterian Church, and ministry. Being now free to act without sectarian constraint, he was, in the beginning of 1840, made Publishing Agent of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society, which caused him to settle in Philadelphia, where he was married, in October, to Sarah A. Speakman, of Chester county. The chief duties of his office at first, were the publication and management of the Pennsylvania Freeman, including, for an interval after the retirement of John G. Whittier, the editorial conduct of that paper. In course of time his functions were enlarged, and under the title of Corresponding Secretary, he performed the part of a factotum and general manager, with a share in all the anti-slavery work, local and national. After the consolidation of the Freeman with the Standard, in 1854, he became the official correspondent of the latter paper, his letters serving to some extent as a substitute for the discontinued Freeman. The operations of the Underground Rail Road came under his review and partial control, as has already appeared in these pages, and the slave cases which came before the courts claimed a large share of his attention. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1851, his duties in this respect were arduous and various, as may be inferred from one of his private letters to an English friend, which found its way into print abroad, and which will be found in another place. (See p. 581).

During the John Brown excitement Mr. McKim had the privilege of accompanying Mrs. Brown in her melancholy errand to Harper's Ferry, to take her last leave of her husband before his execution, and to bring away the body. His companions on that painful but memorable journey, were his wife, and Hector Tyndale, Esq., afterwards honorably distinguished in the war as General Tyndale. Returning with the body of the hero and martyr, still in company with Mrs. Brown, Mr. McKim proceeded to North Elba, where he and Wendell Phillips, who had joined him in New York with a few other friends gathered from the neighborhood, assisted in the final obsequies.

When the war broke out, Mr. McKim was one of the first to welcome it as the harbinger of the slave's deliverance, and the country's redemption. "A righteous war," he said, "is better than a corrupt peace. * * * When war can only be averted by consenting to crime, then welcome war with all its calamities." In the winter of 1862, after the capture of Port Royal, he procured the calling of a public meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia to consider and provide for the wants of the ten thousand slaves who had been suddenly liberated. One of the results of this meeting was the organization of the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief Committee. By request he visited the Sea Islands, accompanied by his daughter, and on his return made a report which served his associates as a basis of operations, and which was republished extensively in this country and abroad.

After the proclamation of emancipation, he advocated an early dissolution of the anti-slavery organization, and at the May Meeting of the American Anti-slavery Society, in 1864, introduced a proposition looking to that result. It was favorably received by Mr. Garrison and others, but no action was taken upon it at that time. When the question came up the following year, the proposition to disband was earnestly supported by Mr. Garrison, Mr. Quincy, Mr. May, Mr. Johnson, and others, but was strongly opposed by Wendell Phillips and his friends, among whom from Philadelphia were Mrs. Mott, Miss Grew, and Robert Purvis, and was decided by a vote in the negative.

Mr. McKim was an early advocate of colored enlistments, as a means of lifting up the blacks and putting down the rebellion. In the spring of 1863, he urged upon the Philadelphia Union League, of which he was a member, the duty of recruiting colored soldiers; as the result, on motion of Thomas Webster, Esq., a movement was set on foot which led to the organization of the Philadelphia Supervisory Committee, and the subsequent establishment of Camp William Penn, with the addition to the national army, of eleven colored regiments.

When, in November, 1863, the Port Royal Relief Committee was enlarged into the Pennsylvania Freedman's Relief Association, Mr. McKim was made its corresponding secretary. He had previously resigned his place in the Anti-slavery Society, believing that that organization was near the end of its usefulness.

EMINENT ANTI-SLAVERY MEN



In the freedmen's work, he traveled extensively, and worked hard, establishing schools at the South and organizing public sentiment in the free States. In the spring of 1865, he was made corresponding secretary of the American Freedman's Commission, which he had helped to establish, and took up his residence in the city of New York. This association was afterwards amplified, in name and scope, into the American Freedman's Union Commission, and Mr. McKim continued with it as corresponding secretary, laboring for reconstruction by means of Freedman's schools, and impartial popular education. On the 1st of July, 1869, the Commission, by unanimous vote on his motion, disbanded, and handed over the funds in its treasury to its constituent State associations. Mr. McKim retired from his labors with impaired health, and has since taken no open part in public affairs. He is one of the proprietors of the New York Nation, in the establishment of which, he took an effective interest.

Mr. McKim's long and assiduous career in the anti-slavery cause, has given evidence of a peculiar fitness in him for the functions he successively discharged. His influence upon men and the times, has been less as a speaker, than as a writer, and perhaps still less as a writer than as an organizer, a contriver of ways and means; fertile in invention, prepared to take the initiative, and bringing to the conversion of others, an earnestness of purpose and a force of language that seldom failed of success. In an enterprise where theory and sentiment were fully represented, and business capacity, and what is called "practical sense," were comparatively rare, his talents were most usefully employed; while, in periods of excitement—and when were such wanting? his caution, sound judgment, and mental balance were qualities hardly less needed or less important.



WILLIAM H. FURNESS, D.D.

Among the Abolitionists of Pennsylvania no man stands higher than Dr. Furness; and no anti-slavery minister enjoys more universal respect. For more than thirty years he bore faithful witness for the black man; in season and out of season contending for his rights. When others deserted the cause he stood firm; when associates in the ministry were silent he spoke out. They defined their position by declaring themselves "as much opposed to slavery as ever, but without sympathy for the abolitionists." He defined his by showing himself more opposed to slavery than ever, and fraternizing with the most hated and despised anti-slavery people.

Dr. Furness came into the cause when it was in its infancy, and had few adherents. From that time till the day of its triumph he was one with it, sharing in all its trials and vicissitudes. In the operations of the Vigilance Committee he took the liveliest interest. Though not in form a member he was one of its chief co-laborers. He brought it material aid continually, and was one of its main reliances for outside support. His quick sympathies were easily touched and when touched were sure to prompt him to corresponding action. He would listen with moistened eyes to a tale of outrage, and go away saying never a word. But the story of wrong would work upon him; and through him upon others. His own feelings were communicated to his friends, and his friends would send gifts to the Committee's treasury. A wider spread sympathy would manifest itself in the community, and the general interests of the cause be visibly promoted. It was in the latter respect, that of moral co-operation, that Dr. Furness's services were most valuable. After hearing a harrowing recital, whether he would or not, it became the burden of his next Sunday's sermon. Abundant proof of this may be found in his printed discourses. Take the following as an illustration. It is an extract from a sermon delivered on the 29th of May, 1854, a period when the slave oligarchy was at the height of its power and was supported at the North by the most violent demonstrations of sympathy. The text was, "Feed my Lambs:"

"And now brothers, sisters, children, give me your hearts, listen with a will to what I have to say. As heaven is my witness, I would not utter one word save for the dear love of Christ and of God, and the salvation of your own souls. Does it require any violent effort of the mind to suppose Christ to address each one of us personally the same question that He put to Peter, 'Lovest thou me?' * * * And at the hearing of His brief command, 'Feed my lambs,' so simple, so direct, so unqualified, are we prompted like the teacher of the law who, when Christ bade him love his neighbor as himself, asked, 'And who is my neighbor?' and in the parable of the good Samaritan, received an answer that the Samaritans whom he despised, just as we despise the African, was his neighbor, are we prompted in like manner to ask, 'Who are the lambs of Christ?' Who are His lambs? Behold that great multitude, more than three millions of men and feeble women and children, wandering on our soil; no not wandering, but chained down, not allowed to stir a step at their own free will, crushed and hunted with all the power of one of the mightiest nations that the world has yet seen, wielded to keep them down in the depths of the deepest degradation into which human beings can be plunged. These, then that we despise, are our neighbors, the poor, stricken lambs of Christ.

To cast one thought towards them, may well cause us to bow down our heads in the very dust with shame. No wonder that professing to love Christ and his religion, we do not like to hear them spoken of; for so far from feeding the lambs of Christ, we are exciting the whole associated power of this land, to keep them from being fed. 'Feed my lambs,' We might feed them with fraternal sympathy, with hope, with freedom, the imperishable bread of Heaven. We might lead them into green pastures and still waters, into the glorious liberty wherewith Christ died to make all men free, the liberty of the children of God. We might secure to them the exercise of every sacred affection and faculty, wherewith the Creator has endowed them. But we do none of those things. We suffer this great flock of the Lord Jesus to be treated as chattels, bought and sold, like beasts of burden, hunted and lacerated by dogs and wolves. I say we, we of these Free Northern communities, because it is by our allowance, signified as effectually by silence, as by active co-operation, that such things are. They could continue so, scarcely an hour, were not the whole moral, religious and physical power of the North pledged to their support. Are we not in closest league and union with those who claim and use the right to buy and sell human beings, God's poor, the lambs of Christ, a union, which we imagine brings us in as much silver and gold as compensates for the sacrifice of our humanity and manhood? Nay, are we not under a law to do the base work of bloodhounds, hunting the panting fugitives for freedom? I utter no word of denunciation. There is no need. For facts that have occurred only within the last week, transcend all denunciation. Only a few hours ago, there was a man with his two sons, hurried back into the inhuman bondage, from which they had just escaped, and that man, the brother, and those two sons, the nephews of a colored clergyman of New York, of such eminence in the New School Presbyterian Church, that he has received the honors of a European University, and has acted as Moderator in one of the Presbyteries of the same Church, when held in the city where he resides. Almost at the very moment the poor fugitive with his children, were dragged through our city, the General Assembly of that very branch of the Presbyterian Church, now in session here, after discussing for days the validity of Roman Catholic baptism, threw out as inexpedient to be discussed, the subject of that great wrong which was flinging back into the agony of Slavery, a brother of one of their own ordained ministers, and could not so much as breathe a word of condemnation against the false and cruel deed which has just been consummated at the capitol of the nation.

When such facts are occurring in the midst of us, we cannot be guiltless concerning the lambs of Christ. It is we, we who make up the public opinion of the North, we who consent that these free States shall be the hunting-ground, where these, our poor brothers and sisters, are the game; it is we that withhold from them the bread of life, the inalienable rights of man. As we withhold these blessings, so is it in our power to bestow them. The sheep then that Christ commands us, as we love Him, to feed, are those who are famishing for the lack of the food which it is in our power to supply. And we can help to feed and relieve and liberate them, by giving our hearty sympathy to the blessed cause of their emancipation, to the abolition of the crying injustice with which they are treated, by uttering our earnest protest against the increasing and flagrant outrages of the oppressor, by withholding all aid and countenance from the work of oppression."

To say that Dr. Furness, in his pleadings for the slave, was "instant in season and out of season," is not to exaggerate. So palpably was this true, that even some of his sympathizing friends intimated to him, that his zeal carried him beyond proper bounds, and that his discourses were needlessly reiterative. To these friends,—who, it is needless to say, did not fully comprehend the breadth and bearing of the question,—he would reply as he did in the following extract from a sermon delivered soon after the one above quoted:

"Again and again, I have had it said to me, with apparently the most perfect simplicity, 'Why do you keep saying so much about the slaves? Do you imagine that there is one among your hearers who does not agree with you? We all know that Slavery is very wrong. What, is the use of harping upon this subject Sunday after Sunday? We all feel about it just as you do.' 'Feel about it just as I do,' Very likely, my friends. It is very possible that you all feel as much, and that many of you feel about it more than I do. God knows that my regret always has been not that I feel so much, but that I do not feel more. Would to Heaven that neither you nor I could eat or sleep for pity, pity for our poor down-trodden brothers and sisters. But the thing to which I implore your attention now, is, not what we know and feel, but the delusion which we are under, in confounding knowing with doing, in fancying that we are working to abolish Slavery because we know that it is wrong. This is what I would have you now to consider, the deception that we practise on ourselves, the dangerous error into which we fall, when we pass off the knowledge of our duty for the performance of it. These are two very distinct things. If you know what is right, happy are ye if ye do it.

Observe, my friends, what it is to which I am now entreating your consideration. It is not the wrongs nor the rights of the oppressed upon which I am now discoursing. It is our own personal exposure to a most serious mistake. It is a danger, which threatens our own souls, to which I would that our eyes should be open and on the watch.

And here, by the way, let me say that one great reason why I refer as often as I do, to that great topic of the day, which, in one shape or another, is continually shaking the land and marking the age in which we live, is not merely the righting of the wronged, but the instruction, the moral enlightenment, the religious edification of our own hearts, which this momentous topic affords. To me this subject involves infinitely more than a mere question of humanity. Its political bearing is the very least and most superficial part of it, scarcely worth noticing in comparison with its moral and religious relations. Once, deterred by its outside, political aspect, I shunned it as many do still, but the more it has pressed itself on my attention, the more I have considered it—the more and more manifest has it become to me, that it is a subject full of light and of guidance, of warning and inspiration for the individual soul. It is the most powerful means of grace and salvation appointed in the providence of Heaven, for the present day and generation, more religious than churches and Sabbaths. It is full of sermons. It is a perfect gospel, a whole Bible of mind-enlightening, heart-cleansing, soul-saving truth. How much light has it thrown for me on the page of the New Testament! What a profound significance has it disclosed in the precepts and parables of Jesus Christ! How do His words burst out with a new meaning! How does it help us to appreciate His trials and the Godlike spirit with which He bore them!"

The dark winter of 1860 broke gloomily over all abolitionists; perhaps upon none did it press more heavily, than upon the small band in Philadelphia. Situated as that city is, upon the very edge of Slavery, and socially bound as it was, by ties of blood or affinity with the slave-holders of the South, to all human foresight it would assuredly be the first theatre of bloodshed in the coming deadly struggle. As Dr. Furness said in his sermon on old John Brown: "Out of the grim cloud that hangs over the South, a bolt has darted, and blood has flowed, and the place where the lightning struck, is wild with fear." The return stroke we all felt must soon follow, and Philadelphia, we feared, would be selected as the spot where Slavery would make its first mortal onslaught, and the abolitionists there, the first victims. Dr. Furness had taken part in the public meeting held on the day of John Brown's execution, to offer prayers for the heroic soul that was then passing away, and had gone with two or three others, to the rail-road station, to receive the martyr's body, when it was brought from the gallows by Mr. (afterwards General) Tyndale and Mr. McKim, and it was generally feared that he and his church would receive the brunt of Slavery's first blow. The air was thick with vague apprehension and rumor, so much so, that some of Dr. Furness's devoted parishioners, who followed his abolitionism but not his non-resistance, came armed to church, uncertain what an hour might bring forth, or in what shape of mob violence or assassination the blow would fall. Few of Dr. Furness's hearers will forget his sermon of December 16, 1860, so full was it of prophetic warning, and saddened by the thought of the fate which might be in store for him and his congregation. It was printed in the "Evening Bulletin," and made a deep impression on the public outside of his own church, and was reprinted in full, in the Boston "Atlas."

"But the trouble cannot be escaped. It must come. But we can put it off. By annihilating free speech; by forbidding the utterance of a word in the pulpit and by the press, for the rights of man; by hurling back into the jaws of oppression, the fugitive gasping for his sacred liberty; by recognizing the right of one man to buy and sell other men; by spreading the blasting curse of despotism over the whole soil of the nation, you may allay the brutal frenzy of a handful of southern slave-masters; you may win back the cotton States to cease from threatening you with secession, and to plant their feet upon your necks, and so evade the trouble that now menaces us. Then you may live on the few years that are left you, and perhaps—it is not certain—we may be permitted to make a little more money and die in our beds. But no, friends, I am mistaken. We cannot put the trouble off. Or, we put it off in its present shape, only that it may take another and more terrible form. If, to get rid of the present alarm, we concede all that makes it worth while to live—and nothing less will avail—perhaps those who can deliberately make such a concession, will not feel the degradation, but, stripped of all honor and manhood, they may eat as heartily and sleep as soundly as ever. But the degradation is not the less, but the greater, for our unconsciousness of it. The trouble which we shall then bring upon ourselves, is a trouble in comparison with which the loss of all things but honor is a glorious gain, and a violent death for right's sake on the scaffold, or by the hands of a mob, peace and joy and victory.

Since we are thus placed, and there is no alternative for us of the free States, but to meet the trouble that is upon us, or by base concessions and compromises to bring upon ourselves a far greater trouble, in the name of God, let us let all things go, and cleave to the right. Prepared to confront the crisis like men, let us with all possible calmness endeavor to take the measure of the calamity that we dread. God knows I have no desire to make light of it. But I affirm, that never since the world began, was there a grander cause for which to speak, to suffer and to die, than the cause of these free States, as against that of the States now rushing upon Secession. The great grievance of which they complain, is nothing more nor less than this: that we endanger the right they claim to treat human beings as beasts of burden. And they maintain this monstrous claim by measures inhuman and barbarous, listening not to the voice of reason or humanity, but treating every man who goes amongst them, suspected of not favoring their cause, or of the remotest connection with others who do not favor it, with a most savage and fiendish cruelty. It is the conflict between barbarism and civilization, between liberty and the most horrible despotism that ever cursed this earth, in which we are called to take part.

And all that is great and noble in the past, all the patriots and martyrs that have suffered in man's behalf, all the sacred instincts and hopes of the human soul are on our side, and the welfare of untold generations of men. Oh, if God, in his infinite bounty, grants us the grace to appreciate the transcendent worth of the cause which is now at stake, there is no trouble that can befall us, no, not the loss of property, of idolized parents or children, or life itself, that we shall not count a blessed privilege. To serve this dear cause of peace and liberty and love, we have no need to grasp the sword or any instrument of violence and death. But we must be ready without flinching, to confront the utmost that men can do, and amidst all the uproar and violence of human passions, still calmly to assert and to exercise our sacred and inalienable liberties, let who will frown and forbid, assured that no just and law-of-God-abiding people, will ever do otherwise than give us their sympathy and their aid.

Death is the worst that can befall us, if so be that we are faithful to the right. It is a solemn and a fearful thing to die, and mortality shrinks from facing that last great mystery. But we must all die, my friends, and the dying hour is not far distant from the youngest of us. To most of us it is very near. To many, only a few brief years remain. And for the sake of these few and uncertain years, shall we push off this present trouble upon our children, who have to stay here a little longer? There is nothing that can so sweeten the bitter cup of mortality when we shall be called to drink it, nothing that can so cheer us in the prospect of parting from all we love, nothing that can send such a blessed light on before us into the dark valley which we must enter, as the consciousness of fidelity to man and to God. And now in these times of great trouble which have come upon us, we have a peculiar and special opportunity of testifying our fidelity, and of enjoying a full experience of its power to support us. We may gather from this trouble, a sweetness that shall take away from all suffering its bitterness. We may kindle that light in our bosoms, which shall make death come to us as a radiant angel."

Four months after the above was uttered, on the 28th of April, 1861, after the attack on Fort Sumter, and the whole North had burst into a flame, people of all denominations flocked to Dr. Furness's church, as to that church which had shown that it was founded on a rock, and none can ever forget the long-drawn breath with which the sermon began: "The long agony is over!" It was the "Te Deum" of a life-time.

Dr. Furness's words and counsels were not wanting throughout the war, and his sermons were constantly printed in the daily press and in separate pamphlet form. And since its close he has continued his absorbing study of the historical accounts of Jesus.

Dr. Furncss was born in Boston, in April, 1802, and was graduated at Harvard, in 1820, and five years later became the minister of the First Congregational Unitarian Christians, in this city, and is consequently the senior clergyman, here, on the score of length of pastorate.

Happy is the man, and enviable the gospel minister, who, looking back upon his course in the great anti-slavery contest, can recall as the chief charge brought against him, that of being over-zealous! That he spoke too often and said too much in favor of the slave! There are but few men, and still fewer ministers, who have a right to take comfort from such recollections! and yet it is to this small class that the cause is most indebted under God, for its triumph, and the country for its deliverance from Slavery.



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

The character and career of the leader of the movement for immediate emancipation in this country, are too well known to be dwelt on here; nor, in the space at our command, is it possible to give in full those facts of his life which have already appeared in print. His earliest biographer was Mary Howitt; and another even more famous authoress, Mrs. H.B. Stowe, in "Men of Our Times," has stood in the same relation to him, while his life-long friend, Oliver Johnson, has writen the best concise account of him, in "Appleton's New American Cyclopaedia."

Mr. Garrison (the Cyclopaedia is, on this point, in error) was born December 12, 1804, in Newburyport, Mass., his father, Abijah Garrison, being a ship-captain, trading with the West Indies, and his mother, Fanny Lloyd, a woman of remarkable beauty, as well as piety and force of character. Intemperate habits led the husband and father from home to a solitary and obscure end, leaving his family entirely dependent. William (or as he was always called, Lloyd), was the youngest but one of five children, and had not done with his schooling before he began to contribute to his own support; at first in Lynn, where he was set at shoemaking, at the age of eleven; afterwards in Newburyport, and finally, in 1818, at Haverhill, where he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. Not finding these trades suited to his taste, the same year he was indentured to Ephraim W. Allen, editor of the "Newburyport Herald," and in the printing-office he completed his education, so far as he was to have any, with such early success, as soon to be an acceptable contributor to his employer's paper, while the authorship of his articles was still his own secret. As soon as his apprenticeship came to a close, in 1826, he became proprietor of the "Free Press," in his native city, but the paper failed of support. Seeking work as a journeyman, in Boston, he was engaged in 1827 to edit, in the interest of "total abstinence," the "National Philanthropist," the first paper of its kind ever published. On a change of proprietors in 1828, he was induced to join a friend in Bennington, Vt., in publishing the "Journal of the Times," which advocated the election of John Quincy Adams for president, besides being devoted to peace, temperance, anti-slavery and other reforms. In this town, Mr. Garrison began his agitation of the subject of Slavery, "in consequence of which there was transmitted to Congress an anti-slavery memorial, more numerously signed than any similar paper previously submitted to that body." It was in Bennington, too, that he received from Benjamin Lundy, who had met him the previous year at his boarding-house in Boston, an invitation to go to Baltimore, and aid him in editing the "Genius of Universal Emancipation."

Baltimore was no strange city to Mr. Garrison. Thither he had accompanied his mother, in 1815, serving as a chore-boy, and he had visited her just before her death, in 1823. He took leave of Boston in the fall of 1829, after having acted as the orator of the day, July 4th, in Park Street church, and surprised his hearers by the boldness of his utterances on the subject of Slavery. The causes of his imprisonment at Baltimore scarcely need to be repeated. For an alleged "gross and malicious libel" on a townsman (of Newburyport) whose ship was engaged in the coastwise slave-trade, and whom he accordingly denounced in the "Genius," he was tried and convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of $50 and costs. The cell in which he was confined for forty-nine days, and from which he was liberated only by the spontaneous liberality of Arthur Tappan, a perfect stranger to him, he had the satisfaction of reseeking, after the close of the war, in company with Judge Bond, but the prison had been removed.

Compelled to part company with Lundy, to whom he has ever owned his moral indebtedness, Mr. Garrison at length started in Boston, in January 1831, his "Liberator" with little else besides his "dauntless spirit and a press." The difficulties which beset the birth of this paper were never entirely overcome, and its publication was attended, through all the thirty-five years of its existence, with constant struggle and privation, and with personal labor, at the printer's case, and over the forms, which only an iron constitution could have endured. The "Liberator" was the organ of the editor alone, and he gave room in it to the numerous reforms which were, in his mind, only subordinate to abolition. In 1865 the last volume was issued, Mr. Garrison having already, in May, withdrawn from the American Anti-slavery Society, which he had helped to found, in 1833, and of which, as he drew up the Declaration of Sentiments, he may be supposed to have known something of the original aims and proper duration.

In September, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to Helen Eliza, daughter of the venerable philanthropist, George Benson, of Providence, R.I., who had, even in the previous century, been an active member of a combined anti-slavery and freedmen's aid society in that city. In October, 1835, occurred the Boston riot, led by "gentlemen of property and standing," in which Mr. Garrison's life was imperilled, and which made him once more familiar with the interior of a jail—this time, a place of refuge. In 1832, he went to England, as an agent of the New England Anti-slavery Society, to awaken English sympathy for the anti-slavery movement, and to undeceive Clarkson and Wilberforce and their distinguished associates as to the nature and object of the Colonization Society, as to which he had already had occasion to undeceive himself. His mission was eminently successful in both its aspects, and resulted in the subsequent visits of George Thompson to this country, between whom and himself a strong personal attachment had arisen and has ever since continued. A second visit to England he made as a delegate to the World's Anti-slavery Convention, in which he refused to sit after his female colleagues had been rejected. A third visit, still in behalf of the cause, took place in 1846. Twenty years later—the war over and Slavery abolished—he again went abroad, to repair his health and renew old friendships, and for the first time passed over to the Continent. In England, he was greeted with cordial appreciation and hospitality by all classes. Numerous public receptions of a most flattering character were given to him, but without the effect of causing him to magnify his own merits or to forget the honor due to his associates in the anti-slavery struggle. At the London Breakfast, where John Bright presided, and John Stuart Mill, the Duke of Argyll, and others spoke, he said, when called upon to reply: "I disclaim, with all the sincerity of my soul, any special praise for anything I have done. I have simply tried to maintain the integrity of my soul before God, and to do my duty." In Edinburgh, the "freedom of the city" was conferred upon him with impressive ceremonies—he being the third American ever thus honored. In Paris he was also received with distinction, his special mission to that city being to attend the International Anti-slavery Convention, in the capacity of a delegate from the American Freedman's Union Commission, of which he was first vice-president.

The justice of the war on the part of the North, and its effect on the fate of Slavery at the South, were never subjects of doubt in the mind of Mr. Garrison, and he quickly recognized the force of events which had taken from the abolitionists the helm of direction, and reunited them with their countrymen in the irresistible flood which no man's hand guided, and no man's hand could stay. An agitator from conviction and not from choice, he was only too glad to lay down the heavy burden of a life-time, and retire to well-earned repose, after such a vision of faint hope realized as certainly no other reformer was ever blessed with. He had lived to see the disunion which he advocated on sacred principles, attempted by the South in the name of the sum of all villanies; the uprising of the North; the grand career of Lincoln; the proclamation of emancipation; the arming of the blacks—his own son among their officers; the end of the rebellion; and the consummation of his prayers and labors for the salvation of his country. He had taken part in the ceremonies at the recovery of Sumter, had walked the streets of Charleston, and received floral tokens of the gratitude of the emancipated. To him it seemed as if his work was done, and that he might, without suspicion or accusation, cease to be conspicuous, or to occupy the public attention in any way relating to the past and recalling his part in the anti-slavery struggle. Notoriety, no longer a necessity, was eagerly avoided; and the physical rest which was now enjoined upon him the liberality of his friends having enabled him to secure, he settled down into the quiet life of a private citizen, whose great duty had become to him merely one of the duties which every man owes his country and his race. His sweet temper, his modesty, his unfailing cheerfulness, his rarely mistaken judgment of men and measures; his blameless and happy domestic life, and his hospitality; his warm sympathy with all forms of human suffering—these and other qualities which cannot be enumerated here, will doubtless receive the just judgment of posterity.

As a fitting adjunct to the foregoing sketch, extracts from some of the speeches made at the London breakfast so magnanimously extended to Mr. Garrison in 1867, are here introduced. As presiding officer on the occasion, John Bright, M.P. spoke as follows:



SPEECH OF MR. BRIGHT, M.P.



The position in which I am placed this morning is one very unusual for me, and one that I find somewhat difficult; but I consider it a signal distinction to be permitted to take a prominent part in the proceedings of this day, which are intended to commemorate one of the greatest of the great triumphs of freedom, and to do honor to a most eminent instrument in the achievement of that freedom. (Hear, hear.) There may be, perhaps, those who ask what is this triumph of which I speak? To put it briefly, and, indeed, only to put one part of it, I may say that it is a triumph which has had the effect of raising 4,000,000 of human beings from the very lowest depths of social and political degradation to that lofty height which men have attained when they possess equality of rights in the first country on the globe. (Cheers.) More than this, it is a triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of slavery in all countries and for all time. (Renewed cheers.) Another question suggests itself—how has this great matter been accomplished? The answer suggests itself in another question. How is it that any great matter is accomplished? By love of justice, by constant devotion to a great cause, and by an unfaltering faith that that which is right will in the end succeed. (Hear, hear.)

When I look at this hall, filled with such an assembly; when I partake of the sympathy which runs from heart to heart at this moment in welcome to our guest of to-day, I cannot but contrast his present position with that which, not so far back but that many of us can remember, he occupied in his own country. It is not forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the guest whom we honor this morning was spending his solitary days in a prison in the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not say that he was languishing in prison, for that I do not believe; he was sustained by a hope that did not yield to the persecution of those who thus maltreated him; and to show that the effect of that imprisonment was of no avail to suppress or extinguish his ardor, within two years after that he had the courage, the audacity—I dare say many of his countrymen used even a stronger phrase than that—he had the courage to commence the publication, in the city of Boston, of a newspaper devoted mainly to the question of the abolition of slavery. The first number of that paper, issued on the 1st January, 1831, contained an address to the public, one passage of which I have often read with the greatest interest, and it is a key to the future life of Mr. Garrison. He had been complained of for having used hard language, which is a very common complaint indeed, and he said in his first number: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard". (Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the future course of his life.

But what was at that time the temper of the people amongst whom he lived, of the people who are glorying now, as they well may glory, in the abolition of slavery throughout their country? At that time it was very little better in the North than it was in the South. I think it was in the year 1835 that riots of the most serious character took place in some of the northern cities; during that time Mr. Garrison's life was in the most imminent peril; and he has never ascertained to this day how it was that he was left alive on the earth to carry on his great work. Turning to the South, a State that has lately suffered from the ravages of armies, the State of Georgia, by its legislature of House, Senate, and Governor, if my memory does not deceive me, passed a bill, offering ten thousand dollars reward, (Mr. Garrison here said five thousand) well, they seemed to think there were people who would do it cheap, (laughter) offered five thousand dollars, and zeal, doubtless, would make up the difference, for the capture of Mr. Garrison, or for adequate proof of his death. Now, these were menaces and perils such as we have not in our time been accustomed to in this country in any of our political movements, (hear, hear) and we shall take a very poor measure indeed of the conduct of the leaders of the emancipation party in the United States if we estimate them by any of those who have been concerned in political movements amongst us. But, notwithstanding all drawbacks, the cause was gathering strength, and Mr. Garrison found himself by and by surrounded by a small but increasing band of men and women who were devoted to this cause, as he himself was. We have in this country a very noble woman, who taught the English people much upon this question, about thirty years ago; I allude to Harriet Martineau. (Cheers.) I recollect well the impression with which I read a most powerful and touching paper which she had written, and which was published in the number of the Westminster Review for December, 1838. It was entitled "The Martyr Age of the United States." The paper introduced to the English public the great names which were appearing on the scene in connection with this cause in America. There was, of course I need not mention, our eminent guest of to-day; there was Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan, and James G. Birney of Alabama, a planter and slave-owner, who liberated his slaves and came north, and became, as I think, the first presidential candidate upon abolition principles in the United States. (Hear, hear.) There were besides them, Dr. Channing, John Quincy Adams, a statesman and President of the United States, and father of the eminent man who is now Minister from that people amongst us. (Cheers.) Then there was Wendell Phillips, admitted to be by all who know him perhaps the most powerful orator who speaks the English language. (Hear, hear.) I might refer to others, to Charles Sumner, the well-known statesman, and Horace Greeley, I think the first of journalists in the United States, if not the first of journalists in the world. (Hear, hear.) But besides these, there were of noble women not a few. There was Lydia Maria Child; there were the two sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, ladies who came from South Carolina, who liberated their slaves, and devoted all they had to the service of this just cause; and Maria Weston Chapman, of whom Miss Martineau speaks in terms which, though I do not exactly recollect them, yet I know described her as noble-minded, beautiful and good. It may be that there are some of her family who are now within the sound of my voice. If it be so, all I have to say is, that I hope they will feel, in addition to all they have felt heretofore as to the character of their mother, that we who are here can appreciate her services, and the services of all who were united with her as co-operators in this great and worthy cause. But there was another whose name must not be forgotten, a man whose name must live for ever in history, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who in the free State of Illinois laid down his life for the cause. (Hear, hear.) When I read that article by Harriet Martineau, and the description of those men and women there given, I was led, I know not how, to think of a very striking passage which I am sure must be familiar to most here, because it is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. After the writer of that epistle has described the great men and fathers of the nation, he says: "Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jephtha, of David, of Samuel, and the Prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." I ask if this grand passage of the inspired writer may not be applied to that heroic band who have made America the perpetual home of freedom? (Enthusiastic cheering.)

Thus, in spite of all that persecution could do, opinion grew in the North in favor of freedom; but in the South, alas! in favor of that most devilish delusion that slavery was a Divine institution. The moment that idea took possession of the South war was inevitable. Neither fact nor argument, nor counsel, nor philosophy, nor religion, could by any possibility affect the discussion of the question when once the Church leaders of the South had taught their people that slavery was a Divine institution; for then they took their stand on other and different, and what they in their blindness thought higher grounds, and they said, "Evil! be thou my good;" and so they exchanged light for darkness, and freedom for bondage, and good for evil, and, if you like, heaven for hell. * * * *

There was a universal feeling in the North that every care should be taken of those who had so recently and marvellously been enfranchised. Immediately we found that the privileges of independent labor were open to them, schools were established in which their sons might obtain an education that would raise them to an intellectual position never reached by their fathers; and at length full political rights were conferred upon those who a few short years, or rather months, before, had been called chattels, and things to be bought and sold in any market. (Hear, hear.) And we may feel assured, that those persons in the Northern States who befriended the negro in his bondage will not now fail to assist his struggles for a higher position. * * * * * * *

To Mr. Garrison more than any other man this is due; his is the creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and which has made freedom possible in America. (Hear, hear.) His name is venerated in his own country, venerated where not long ago it was a name of obloquy and reproach. His name is venerated in this country and in Europe wheresoever Christianity softens the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men; and I venture to say that in time to come, near or remote I know not, his name will become the herald and the synonym of good to millions of men who will dwell on the now almost unknown continent of Africa. (Loud cheers.) * * *

To Mr. Garrison, as is stated in one of the letters which has just been read, to William Lloyd Garrison it has been given, in a manner not often permitted to those who do great things of this kind, to see the ripe fruit of his vast labors. Over a territory large enough to make many realms, he has seen hopeless toil supplanted by compensated industry; and where the bondman dragged his chain, there freedom is established for ever. (Loud cheers.) We now welcome him amongst us as a friend whom some of us have known long; for I have watched his career with no common interest, even when I was too young to take much part in public affairs; and I have kept within my heart his name, and the names of those who have been associated with him in every step which he has taken; and in public debate in the halls of peace, and even on the blood-soiled fields of war, my heart has always been with those who were the friends of freedom. (Renewed cheering.) We welcome him then with a cordiality which knows no stint and no limit for him and for his noble associates, both men and women.

After this eloquent and able speech by the chairman, the honor of proposing an address to Mr. Garrison devolved upon the Duke of Argyll, who introduced the subject in the following glowing speech:



SPEECH OF THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.



MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:—It is hard to follow an address of such extraordinary beauty, simplicity and power; but it now becomes my duty at your command, sir, to move an address of hearty congratulation to our distinguished guest, William Lloyd Garrison. (Cheers.) Sir, this country is from time to time honored by the presence of many distinguished, and of a few illustrious men; but for the most part we are contented to receive them with that private cordiality and hospitality with which, I trust, we shall always receive strangers who visit our shores. The people of this country are not pre-eminently an emotional people; they are not naturally fond of public demonstrations; and it is only upon rare occasions that we give, or can give, such a reception as that we see here this day. There must be something peculiar in the cause which a man has served, in the service which he has rendered, and in our own relations with the people whom he represents, to justify or to account for such a reception. (Hear, hear.) As regards the cause, it is not too much to say that the cause of negro emancipation in the United States of America has been the greatest cause which, in ancient or in modern times, has been pleaded at the bar of the moral judgment of mankind. (Cheers.) I know that to some this will sound as the language of exaggerated feeling; but I can only say that I have expressed myself in language which I believe conveys the literal truth. (Hear, hear.)

I have, indeed, often heard it said in deprecation of the amount of interest which was bestowed in this country on the cause of negro emancipation in America, that we are apt to forget the forms of suffering which are immediately at our own doors, over which we have some control, and to express exaggerated feeling as to the forms of suffering with which we have nothing to do, and for which we are not responsible. I have never objected to that language in so far as it might tend to recall us to the duties which lie immediately around us, and in so far as it might tend to make us feel the forgetfulness of which we are sometimes guilty, of the misery and poverty in our own country; but, on the other hand, I will never admit, for I think it would be confounding great moral distinctions, that the miseries which arise by way of natural consequence out of the poverty and the vices of mankind, are to be compared with those miseries which are the direct result of positive law and of a positive institution, giving to man property in man. (Loud cheers.) It is true, also, that there have been forms of servitude, meaning thereby compulsory labor, against which we do not entertain the same feelings of hostility and horror with which we have regarded slavery in America.

* * * * *

It was a system of which it may be truly said, that it was twice cursed. It cursed him who served, and it cursed him that owned the slave. (Hear, hear.) When we recollect the insuperable temptations which that system held out to maintain in a state of degradation and ignorance a whole race of mankind; the horrors of the internal slave-trade, more widely demoralizing, in my opinion, than the foreign slave-trade itself; the violence which was done to the sanctities of domestic life; the corrupting effect which it was having upon the very churches of Christianity, when we recollect all these things, we can fully estimate the evil from which my distinguished friend and his coadjutors have at last redeemed their country. (Cheers.) It was not only the Slave states which were concerned in the guilt of slavery; it had struck its roots deep in the free States of North America. * * *

We honor Mr. Garrison, in the first place, for the immense pluck and courage he displayed. (Cheers.) Sir, you have truly said that there is no comparison between the contests in which he had to fight and the most bitter contests of our own public life. In looking back, no doubt, to the contest which was maintained in this country some thirty-five years ago against slavery in our colonies, we may recollect that Clarkson and Wilberforce were denounced as fanatics, and had to encounter much opprobrium; but it must not be forgotten that, so far as regards the entwining of the roots of slavery into the social system, in the opinions and interests of mankind, there was no comparison whatever between the circumstances of that contest here and those which attended it in America. (Hear, hear.) The number of persons who in this country were enlisted on the side of slavery by personal interest was always comparatively few; whilst, in attacking slavery at its head-quarters in the United States, Mr. Garrison had to encounter the fiercest passions which could be roused. * * * *

Thank God, Mr. Garrison appears before us as the representative of the United States; freedom is now the policy of the government and the assured policy of the country, and we can to-day accept and welcome Mr. Garrison, not merely as the liberator of the slaves, but as the representative also of the American Government. (Cheers.) * * * *



THE ADDRESS TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, ESQ.



"SIR:—We heartily welcome you to England in the name of thousands of Englishmen who have watched with admiring sympathy your labors for the redemption of the negro race from slavery, and for that which is a higher object than the redemption of any single race, the vindication of the universal principles of humanity and justice; and who, having sympathized with you in the struggle, now rejoice with you in the victory.

"Forty years ago, when you commenced your efforts, slavery appeared to be rapidly advancing to complete ascendency in America. Not only was it dominant in the Southern States, but even in the Free States it had bowed the constituencies, society, and, in too many instances, even the churches to its will. Commerce, linked to it by interest, lent it her support. A great party, compactly organized and vigorously wielded, placed in its hands the power of the state. It bestowed political offices and honors, and was thereby enabled to command the apostate homage of political ambition. Other nations felt the prevalence in your national councils of its insolent and domineering spirit. There was a moment, most critical in the history of America and of the world, when it seemed as though that continent, with all its resources and all its hopes, was about to become the heritage of the slave power.